Staten Islanders to Tie Up Verrazano Bridge with Pennies on Monday

May 14, 2009

Hey, you can have your Tea Parties — Staten Island’s having a Penny Protest! As few outside the forgotten borough noticed, the recent Albany MTA bill added a dollar to the Verrazano Bridge’s $9 toll. So local “self taught artist” Scott LoBaido proposes that at noon on Monday, drivers protest the hike by paying their $10 toll in increments of one cent — 1,000 pennies each. This deliberate slowdown of traffic will surely win the attention of those fancy-pantses in Albany. LoBaido wants protesters to meet him at the South Beach Zone 2 parking lot on Capodanno Boulevard at 10:45 a.m. And lest you think this is lone-wacko stuff, Staten Island assemblyman Lou Tobacco approves the protest. He says it will “send a strong message to Albany that Staten Islanders are tired of being treated like an ATM.” What could possibly go wrong? “I hope they all remember to take their EZ Passes out of their cars,” says a Staten Island Advance commenter. “Otherwise: FAIL.”